


Burn That Bridge When We Get To It

by anthologia



Series: It's a Summer Kind of Sickness [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ...kind of, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Bad Flirting, F/M, One-Sided Attraction, Self-Harm, Violence, hdu express feelings in a healthy way?, we just don't know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 22:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7482405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthologia/pseuds/anthologia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lance is doing that thing again. The same thing he does with Princess Allura and with anything vaguely attractive and female (who isn’t Pidge, anyway), the posturing and cheesy lines and waggling eyebrows, the suggestive comments, and she just –</p><p>She finally snaps and shoves him away from her, hard enough that he goes flying back and lands against the wall opposite her, eyes wide with almost comical shock. “What the quiznak?!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn That Bridge When We Get To It

**Author's Note:**

> God, I was actually plotting something Keith/Shiro and then this "hey so what WOULD Lance be like around 63!Keith" question popped into my head, and here we are.

Lance is doing that _thing_ again. The same thing he does with Princess Allura and with anything vaguely attractive and female (who isn’t Pidge, anyway), the posturing and cheesy lines and waggling eyebrows, the suggestive comments, and she just –

She finally _snaps_ and shoves him away from her, hard enough that he goes flying back and lands against the wall opposite her, eyes wide with almost comical shock. “What the quiznak?!”

“Just _stop it!_ ” she yells back at him, hands clenched into fists and held tight at her sides so she doesn’t do anything else she’s going to regret. “Stop with the – the flirting, and the weird _looks_ , and the – everything! It’s not – it’s not going to work, so just – “ She twists around and slams one of her fists into the wall behind her to vent some of the frustration. It _hurts_ , of course it hurts because there’s no way she’s winning in a fight between her hand and a _space ship_ , but it still helps.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Lance says, holding up his hands in surrender. “Jesus, what’s your _problem_?”

“Right now, _you!_ ” she shoots back before deciding that, _screw_ this conversation, she’s getting out of here. She leaves Lance still pressed against the wall, refusing to give him so much as a glance backwards.

 

Lance finds her in the training room within the hour, because of course he does. He can’t just _leave her alone_. She’s just finished a training module and is still breathing heavily and gulping down water, waiting for her body to catch up and realize she’s done.

“So, uh, I screwed up pretty bad” is the first thing out of his mouth, and she’d be lying if she said it wasn’t a little bit satisfying to hear, even if she’s also a little wary of it.

“No kidding?” she asks, acidly. “How could you tell?”

For a second, he tenses up like he’s getting ready for another fight but then stops himself. “I shouldn’t have kept flirting with you when you didn’t want it. That was shitty of me.”

“Yeah, it was,” she says, not in the mood to make this any easier on him.

“I’m _sorry_ , okay? And I won’t do it anymore.” He makes a weird, unfamiliar gesture with one of his hands, and then holds it out to her like he’s waiting for something. “Pilot’s promise.”

She just stares at him blankly. “That’s not even a _thing_.”

“Agree to disagree.” After a moment, he retracts the hand. “Look, I really _didn’t_ mean to make you uncomfortable. I’m just, uh, not always that great at. Talking to people. That are really attractive. Not that you’re – I mean, not that you _aren’t_ – oh _god_.” He buries his face in his hands. “Just stop me.”

And this apology has officially crossed the line from kind-of-pleasant-novelty to being uncomfortable again, albeit in a different way than earlier. Time to put an end to it. “Apology accepted.”

“Okay. Good. Good,” Lance says, relieved, before his gaze catches on her hand. “Hey, uh – your hand doesn’t look too good.”

 _That’s what happens when you throw it into a wall, yeah,_ she doesn’t say. Instead, she just opts for the tried-and-true brush-off of “It’s fine.”

“Doesn’t look fine.” He takes a few hesitant steps forward and then stops about an arm’s-length away. “Can I – I just want to look at it for a sec.”

“If it’ll make you go away quicker,” she says before offering out her hand. He’s not wrong about it not looking good; an hour gave it plenty of time to grow some pretty impressive-looking bruises, but she’s fairly sure nothing’s broken.

He’s surprisingly gentle about the way he touches her, careful to avoid obviously damaged skin. “You should probably get this wrapped or iced or something.”

“I can deal with it myself.”

“Okay,” he says, and for a moment she could swear he almost looks _disappointed_ before he lets go of her. “I guess I’ll just… go then.”

She nods tightly and turns away from him and the door to where she’d stashed a couple of her things while she was fighting. It’s quiet for a moment, like he’d already gone, before he starts talking again.

“I just wanted to say. I do actually _like_ you,” he says quietly. “A lot. As a person, you know? Even if you’re also kind of infuriating and terrifying sometimes, and I should not have said that because _wow_ , I should have just stopped when I was ahead. Uh, pretend that last five seconds didn’t happen. What I’m _trying_ to say is you’re just really cool and talented, and I like knowing you, and I figured I should say _that_ out loud at least once.”

It’s completely unfair because now she doesn’t know what to do with Lance trying to be _sincere_. It _does_ make her feel better to hear him say that, a little less like a shiny toy he just wanted to play with, but it’s not like it fixes everything. There’s still the accumulation of the last few weeks making her feel uncomfortable and off-balance and _less_.

“Thanks,” she decides on, eventually. “If you could just – just go now. I can’t keep having this conversation.”

“Yeah, that’s probably fair. Okay,” he says before turning and heading out. She watches him until he’s out of eyesight and then goes back to her stuff. She’ll probably have to _talk_ to him again later, but that can wait for a while, maybe even until she can use Shiro as a buffer. For now, she just needs to get cleaned up so she can be ready to deal with whatever _other_ stuff the rest of the day decides to throw at her.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested in my fics and want more, I have an account at syntactition.tumblr.com where I have bits of stories that are currently in the works and other ficlets and stories that haven't made their way to AO3.
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT: all right, guess I'm getting acquainted with the comment deletion system. If your comment exists for the sole purpose of telling me how much you hate rule 63/how transphobic or homophobic I am, etc., I'm deleting it. If you have something to say about the actual fic you are commenting on and you're not, you know, being a jackass, then that's fine.


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